Anna Blandford

Anna came to filmmaking through a love of cinema. After reading English at university she had an initial career in design and social housing development. This led to her running community and youth driven film projects which explored social problems.

Anna then made her own short films, which became her film school. Early efforts were very low budget films made for competitions; and her prize winnings were used to fund her subsequent films. Anna won a Telegraph Critics Choice award for ‘Supersonic’ and her film ‘Looking for Marilyn’ was the first ‘Straight8′ film to premiere on Channel 4 before screening with Kodak at Cannes.

With the sensual and dreamlike period film ‘Goblin Market’, Anna was selected for Future Encounters, identifying her as ‘one of ten international directors ‘to watch’. ‘Goblin Market’ was exhibited at Tate Britain, the Pushkin Gallery and the Garage Centre for Contemporary Art in Moscow, alongside its festival run.

She then ventured into more aesthetically formal films which explored moral dilemmas. This resulted in the award-winning films ‘Untitled’ and ‘To The Sea’, the latter described by Aesthetica magazine as ‘an intricate film that experiments with its use of narrative…resonating long after the film has finished’.

Anna studied an MA in screenwriting at Birkbeck. Her last two shorts, ‘Cruelty’ and ‘On the Surface’ were backed by the BFI and Creative England. ‘On The Surface’ was filmed in France and the UK and has recently completed post production. It explores guilt and disassociation within a middle-class family.